- May 8, 2006
- 703
- 240
- 84
Build Thread 1978 Mercury Cyclone. The pig is in the pen.
- Status
-
Sponsors (?)
Thanks to all that contributed on the tail light thing. I'm still not in love w/ anything as of yet,..so the tacked on fox lights will remain until I get an epiphany.
As for today, I did a few things.
Finally got the rear end off the floor, and hung. Permanently. Assembled the QA-1's, cranked em' up an inch, turned the knob 4 clicks, done. Opened up the box that the UPR C/A's have been in and bolted them in place.
I came to a decision on how I was gonna get the water from the radiators to the intercooler.
It ended up costing me another 200.00 in hoses, and AN fittings,...but what the hell.
Since the first plan involved using rigid copper, I made use of some of it and made the bridge to connect the inlet of the one rad to the outlet of the other. Water will enter the circuit at the red/blue end, and leave at the black end. I gotta decide whether I want to pump the water through the radiators first, or push the water to the intercooler after it comes out of the radiator. (and in effect, suck water through the radiators from the reservoir.) It probably wont matter one damn bit where I put the pump, I just didn't know if pushing it through the rads first will cause a flow restriction.
It's gonna come and go through the floor under what used to be my back seat. Now it's just gonna be a dummy box back there to provide clearance for all of the junk to run.
I also made a cover to cover the cowl panel. Presently the glue I used to bond the metal cover to the warped, cracked, and broken urethane junker that used to be there is setting up. Since the AC system I'm using is an aftermarket piece, and it gets it's air from the cabin, so I can seal off the fresh air duct the cowl used to feed.
Now for the rest of the story.
The car has been sitting on four jack stands at the outer most edges of the frame rails. After hanging the rear today,..I was sealing up the gaps on my airbox that the rear radiators are housed in. That process was proving to be a pain in my ass, as the trunk is so deep, it was just too much of a reach to get the caulk gun where I needed it.
So I thought I'd just crawl into the trunk to get a better angle.
I put my knee on the rear bumper, and just start to apply my weight, and the front end of the car starts to come up. With the weight of the now hanging rear behind the rear most jack stands the added weight of me pressing on the bumper was all it needed to rise up.
And it really, really rose.
By the time I realized what was happening, and got off that back bumper, the front end was 2' high. Now that I was off it it was coming back down. I panicked, and tried to press down on the rear bumper, so that I could help ease the front end back down, but it was coming down too fast to stop it.
I was expecting it to have somehow shifted, and that it was going to miss the front jack stands enough to cause the whole freakin thing to come off, and end up on the floor...but it didn't. It just hits the jackstands w/ a loud bang.
All Over and done before I could whack out.
As for today, I did a few things.
Finally got the rear end off the floor, and hung. Permanently. Assembled the QA-1's, cranked em' up an inch, turned the knob 4 clicks, done. Opened up the box that the UPR C/A's have been in and bolted them in place.
I came to a decision on how I was gonna get the water from the radiators to the intercooler.
It ended up costing me another 200.00 in hoses, and AN fittings,...but what the hell.
Since the first plan involved using rigid copper, I made use of some of it and made the bridge to connect the inlet of the one rad to the outlet of the other. Water will enter the circuit at the red/blue end, and leave at the black end. I gotta decide whether I want to pump the water through the radiators first, or push the water to the intercooler after it comes out of the radiator. (and in effect, suck water through the radiators from the reservoir.) It probably wont matter one damn bit where I put the pump, I just didn't know if pushing it through the rads first will cause a flow restriction.
It's gonna come and go through the floor under what used to be my back seat. Now it's just gonna be a dummy box back there to provide clearance for all of the junk to run.
I also made a cover to cover the cowl panel. Presently the glue I used to bond the metal cover to the warped, cracked, and broken urethane junker that used to be there is setting up. Since the AC system I'm using is an aftermarket piece, and it gets it's air from the cabin, so I can seal off the fresh air duct the cowl used to feed.
Now for the rest of the story.
The car has been sitting on four jack stands at the outer most edges of the frame rails. After hanging the rear today,..I was sealing up the gaps on my airbox that the rear radiators are housed in. That process was proving to be a pain in my ass, as the trunk is so deep, it was just too much of a reach to get the caulk gun where I needed it.
So I thought I'd just crawl into the trunk to get a better angle.
I put my knee on the rear bumper, and just start to apply my weight, and the front end of the car starts to come up. With the weight of the now hanging rear behind the rear most jack stands the added weight of me pressing on the bumper was all it needed to rise up.
And it really, really rose.
By the time I realized what was happening, and got off that back bumper, the front end was 2' high. Now that I was off it it was coming back down. I panicked, and tried to press down on the rear bumper, so that I could help ease the front end back down, but it was coming down too fast to stop it.
I was expecting it to have somehow shifted, and that it was going to miss the front jack stands enough to cause the whole freakin thing to come off, and end up on the floor...but it didn't. It just hits the jackstands w/ a loud bang.
All Over and done before I could whack out.
It was just a joke, as he had originally mentioned doing it. I personally hate mixed breeds.
As for the tails, I am pretty well stuck on those Shelby Mustang tails. Very clean and smooth. Im not a fan of the Cougar or Capri lights with all the added plastic/metal ridges. Not that it matters, but just giving my opinion.
The Cougar tail lights become the Shelby tail lights simply by switching the trim bezels to the simple ring around the lens. The other thing about those lights are that there is already a sequential kit that came stock with all of them i.e. 67 Cougar/Shelby/T-bird, and I can upgrade it to LED like I did on the red car.
We'll see,...I'm getting the head back from the machine shop tomorrow, so now I gotta get past the next decision as to the head gasket.
I thought the head gasket was gonna come from Cometic, based on a custom build. After talking w/ him last week seems that ain't gonna happen. He doesn't have the tooling, and besides a copper HG, the only thing he could offer me was more or less a stock replacement.
Flatout will make me a custom piece that will survive any amount of boost I want to throw at it, IDK what exactly the composition is but it will end up costing a little north of 500.00 to get that done. They also have the rubber coated copper piece, but I'll have to get the head cut for an o-ring at the very least to use it. And there is always a potential water leak when using copper.
It's been a pretty long time since I checked how much getting the head cut for that Oring, but I'd bet that by the time I do that, and pay Flatout for their coated copper gasket, I may as well have bought the custom graphite piece from them in the first place.
Lastly there is another guy in CA. that'll make me a copper piece for fairly cheap,...also suggests that I Oring the head,...but for insuring it not to leak water, he wants me to use some Yamaha head sealing goop that more or less glues the head gasket to the deck, and then to the head itself. He said that Honda/Yamaha use it on their engines when high stresses are involved. Said that I would be able to get the head off the block if I never needed to, but it would not exactly just "pop" right off.
So, looks like another financial hurdle to jump,..I thought that I'd only be out about 150.00 for the HG, now it's gonna be three times that.
Here's the problem with that.
That head was made by Honda for Ford Australia back in.................1980.
So what I have in effect is a museum piece. Australia has long since moved on to a SOHC, and A DOHC version of that head, so asking anybody what they are using for a HG on that motor needs to be rephrased to "what DID you use to use "?
I'll probably end up caving in and buying the GD custom 500.00 thing and be done with it.
I've got a brand new stock Fel-pro "Print-O-Seal that fits the head that came with it. IDK how much boost that stocker will hold, so I'm hesitant to use it.
So when you blow a head gasket from too much boost, are you out another $500 or will the gasket be cheaper the second time around?
Naw the replacement gasket would be 200.00.
Not the path I'm gonna go anyway. Spoke w/ Titan SCE. They imbed a wire ring in their copper HG, negating the requirement that I have my block oring'd. He also recommended the use of Yamabond to seal the head. The quoted price for their HG was 240.00. I'm gonna go that route, and glue the head on with that Yamabond.
I'd be nervous trusting my 1 off engine to yamabond.
But hey, maybe a yama-dab-will-do. If not it'll be flint stone powered.
See what I did there?
But hey, maybe a yama-dab-will-do. If not it'll be flint stone powered.
See what I did there?
- Dec 19, 2010
- 5,719
- 4,238
- 224
Today was a "Mike has to see his machinist buddy to get things done" day.
The list of things I need the "special talents" of my machinist for are as follows:
1. Machine the nose of the cam, turning it down from the worthless stock 250 cam gear size, down to SBF size, and then drill the face of the front journal to acommodate the dowel pin.
(Lets discuss this for a minute shall we)
Anybody that knows anything about billet roller cams knows that one of the processes they all go through is a final heat treating to harden all the lobes and journal surfaces. That heat treat makes the camshaft extremely durable, hard as a diamond, and basically is one of the things in an engine that doesn't wear out because of that.
It also makes it impossible to machine.
Had I known at the time of building the cam that there wasn't a decent gear set available, and I was gonna have to make a SBF gear fit,..I just woulda had the cam grinder modify the cam before the heat treating in the beginning. Unfortunately, I just assumed that you could get a decent gear set for just about any engine.
I chose,.................poorly.
Fortunately for me however, The Australian cam grinder I used used a different heat treating process called induction hardening,...that only hardens the lobe and journal surfaces to bearing race hardness,....all the rest of the cam is pretty much just north of standard hardness.
That nose turned down like butter.
Now the dowel pin,..........that was a different story.
Because the 250 journal diameter is much smaller than a SBF, drilling that 5/16" dowel pin got real close (w/i .250) to the journal surface of the first journal. The further away from center, the harder that damn cam got. the initial 1/8 pilot hole drilled easily enough, but the 3/16" bit was starting to complain, the 1/4" bit would actually snap and chatter,..and the 5/16" bit actually walked in the hole,..preferring to drill the softer metal towards the center, as opposed to the kryptonite at the outer edge.
The hole ended up being unusable.
So plan B was to keep the hole smaller, and closer to the center,...so we drilled two 1/4" holes at 90* perpendicular to the now mangulated hole.
That worked. but the cam took the better part of an afternoon, and shot the day.
Moving on,...back to the list:
2. Cut the crank keyway deeper to the front of the crank journal.
3. Mill the mating surface of my exhaust manifold ( Medusa) as it had crowned slightly from welding.
4. Open the center of my 36-1 crank trigger wheel to pilot over the hub on my SBF harmonic balancer.
5. Make three aluminum plugs to replace three of the five freeze plugs so that I can re-direct the water from the pump into the side of the engine, as opposed to the front. I'll drill and tap these three plugs 3/4 NPT, and block the front WP hole. I'll build a manifold to distribute the water after I figure out how I'm gonna get it there.
6. Build 4 spacers to properly space my rear calipers off of my $200.00 Cobra caliper brackets.
After all of that is done,....I'll be able to mock up the crank, and the cam,...and see if the custom roller chain I had to find ( That comes as a replacement for no Ford product) will fit my Ford product.
THAT, will be the next hurdle to jump.
**And.......I do like the new forum look. I got at 2014 black moon skin w/ Gluttony for a color option.
Thanks @Noobz347 .
Glad you go the cam worked out. I figured you'd find a plan sooner or later. I probably don't need to say this but ensure that you have extra pins made if they are custom.
Oh... and try the dark theme too. I'm going to start tweaking on it this weekend (I hope). Just darken it some and increase the contrast between colors etc. It's too bright for a dark room IMO.
All you noobz fire up your "Who cares if it's not about a HCI 306-O-Meter", It's time for another installment of "Why the hell did he do that"?
I Picked up the head today, commensurately completing my initial decision to invest in the ordeal involved to build an inline six cylinder.
The total machine bill came to 812.00 there, plus the 125.00 at another shop to get the recip assy balanced. The odd-N-ends that require the services of a "job shop" machinist adds about another 250.00 to that bottom line. Total to make a 6 cylinder in a Fox body keep up with a stock Terminator.........about 5k.
(Hell, If this thing makes the power people are telling me it'll make,..that Termi better pile on the mods)
Those are BBC beehive springs holding my weenie 1.8/1.5 valves in the head. The holes on top of the exhaust ports are where I drilled and tapped additional water circulation holes, given that I had to block so many on the deck side.
The six holes at the top of the pic that appear to be tapped for plugs are in fact, tapped for plugs. The bottom three lowest holes, plus the two slots at the rear are the only way water from the block would've been able to get into the head. Now that I've drilled and tapped my little "high air pocket escape" runners, and given that there was an unused 3/4 plug at the back of the head that I'm gonna use, I'm confident that I'll be OK.
Now I gotta tackle the valve cover. For months now, I've been PM'ing Australian ASSHOLES to help me find one of the stock cast covers Ford made for the head,...to no avail.
I guess like all of rest of the engine, one more custom, one off, hand made item is in the cards.
OK noobz,...if you made it this far,....
I RELEASE YOU!!!
I Picked up the head today, commensurately completing my initial decision to invest in the ordeal involved to build an inline six cylinder.
The total machine bill came to 812.00 there, plus the 125.00 at another shop to get the recip assy balanced. The odd-N-ends that require the services of a "job shop" machinist adds about another 250.00 to that bottom line. Total to make a 6 cylinder in a Fox body keep up with a stock Terminator.........about 5k.
(Hell, If this thing makes the power people are telling me it'll make,..that Termi better pile on the mods)
Those are BBC beehive springs holding my weenie 1.8/1.5 valves in the head. The holes on top of the exhaust ports are where I drilled and tapped additional water circulation holes, given that I had to block so many on the deck side.
The six holes at the top of the pic that appear to be tapped for plugs are in fact, tapped for plugs. The bottom three lowest holes, plus the two slots at the rear are the only way water from the block would've been able to get into the head. Now that I've drilled and tapped my little "high air pocket escape" runners, and given that there was an unused 3/4 plug at the back of the head that I'm gonna use, I'm confident that I'll be OK.
Now I gotta tackle the valve cover. For months now, I've been PM'ing Australian ASSHOLES to help me find one of the stock cast covers Ford made for the head,...to no avail.
I guess like all of rest of the engine, one more custom, one off, hand made item is in the cards.
OK noobz,...if you made it this far,....
I RELEASE YOU!!!
Last edited:
I don't think I have enough blood in me left to bleed that much money out of my ass.
The top notch work he does requires premium dollars for the end result. I'm at the "Will Work for Food" stage in the build.
- Status